Reverse
by Hilarious-Mayhem
Summary: The Wish House closed down. Children sent away. An unknowning man falling into something over his head.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note: I sure have a lot of stories to work on…but my muse made me do this. I absolutely love HenryxWalter stories XD . Anyway, please review or I will hold this story at gunpoint. **

**Love,**

**Hilarious-Mayhem**

*********

"_**Maybe it's just an illusion to hope that behind the darkness of the clouds, you'll finally find the sun…"**_

_*********_

_Prologue_

Henry Townshend had never _been_ much of anything.

Not really…

If one were told to describe him in one word their first thought would be _introverted. _Introverted, quiet, shy, nondescript, emotionless, absent, aloft, reserved, withdrawn.

A strange sort of blankness surrounded the young and sometimes eerily silent man that seemed impenetrable by those that were around him. He was one of those people that you would recognize in the subway, or going to the market, or even heading down the sidewalk. It's just that you couldn't pinpoint his name in your mind…couldn't find the exact name to go to the face. One of those people whom you would meet, and not think of once until you saw them again.

"_That guy who lives across from me." _As one would vaguely think, not quite able to remember that simple, common name. A plain name that would have probably been easy to remember, should anyone have ever made the attempt to do so.

To classify it in one category, I suppose you could say that he sort of fit in with the background of all of the settings he inhabited, more of an object than anything at all, blending in with the décor, as one might say. Wallflower by choice, perhaps?

He wasn't exactly ugly, but nor was he absolutely gorgeous, like the sort of men posted on the covers of magazines that woman drooled and swooned over. He was just considered…average.

But with him, it was more of a refined and silent sort of look, something you had to observe closely to actually be able to see. It was hidden, buried, like a small insignificant detail that someone would have to look underneath all of the superficial standards of this world to truly find.

Many people never did actually see any of this however because of his absence of character, or what seemed to them to be an absence. He didn't really like to show emotions very often, besides to people whom he trusted. Mostly this was composed of his family.

He was very quiet, the sort of person that fit well with his profession, setting well into that classical preconception that artists were the sort of moody and haunted individuals. He was a photographer, and loved his job very much.

Henry was also painfully shy, which caused him to have very few friends even in his early childhood, only people who went out of their way to befriend him usually broke into that little protective bubble that seemed to surround him in a layer of fog, muddling his true inner self.

And even if they did manage to penetrate that layer, they always felt that they didn't belong in that bubble that Henry had created, that layer that made him seem somewhat aloft, and absolutely detached from his surroundings.

Don't get me wrong though, Henry, despite his unusually low amount of friends was and never had been really lonely. Because you cannot be lonely if you like the person you're alone with, and Henry had never had any perceived notions that there was anything wrong within himself, he was comfortable being by himself without anyone bothering him. He didn't do well in any type of social situations anyway, people were not his forte.

He was more comfortable taking pictures or staying his room than going to parties, talking, and drinking like other people sometimes did for fun. He couldn't really see what could be so much fun about those activities, and he didn't believe he ever would.

As a child, his parents had often complained of his isolation from all of the other children, encouraging him to be a part of the group, to go make some friends. It had been in vain, of course.

While other children had been off laughing or joking with each other, Henry had stayed to himself, reading or whatever was there to occupy his time. His teachers even showed concern over this peculiar characteristic of Henry's, but since it didn't hurt anybody, they usually ignored it.

Occasionally people would even think his tendency to listen rather than speak made him an excellent source of companionship, contributing to his low friends.

Henry hadn't ever done anything that was considered to be particularly exciting either.

After high school, he had immediately went to the local community college and studied photography and colonial arts, he also got a part-time job at the local supermarket helping to stack the shelves just to get some extra pocket money, his parents had paid for his college education and he felt that he couldn't take any more of their charity.

His parents, of course, didn't mind doing so, but he just felt it wrong to rely on them any longer than necessary. They had cared for him as an infant, into childhood, even later into his teenage years they had still tried to do so, with his mother's gentle touch and his father's gruff words of wisdom.

But they had done far enough for him, and he truly did love both his mother and his father with all of his heart. He also had a younger sister named Tina, whom he loved, though he wasn't very close to her.

She was staying at the university in Portland right now, studying to become a teacher in the Department of Education. He rarely was able speak with her though…she was busy with her studies nowadays. He was proud of her though.

But the Townshend's were a painfully normal family; a mother, a father, a girl, and finally Henry, the boy.

Everything about Henry screamed _ordinariness._

This ordinariness is exactly why something had to at least one time in his life be abnormal. Something always has to go wrong when your whole life has been smooth and like clockwork.

But he definitely hadn't been expecting what had been coming towards him though. Though god knows the signs were there, larger than a blimp, pointing right towards the oblivious and confused Henry. He just couldn't _see_ those signs at the time because he had been in his own world, blind to the environment around him, blind to what he should have been able to see, but unfortunately wasn't.

But he couldn't exactly make himself regret it when that incident occurred, began to occur, because deep down, he knew that something would have had to happen eventually.

Something very, _very _abnormal even by the regular person's standards.

We could get right into the juicy details of that abnormality, could go right off and tell those events from that point in chronological order, tell you exactly what happened in less than one chapter, summarize the events and give all the facts. It could be done that way, but I'm not going to, because that would be unfair to you, and leave you without all the pieces that make the story come together.

To tell the story the most accurate and truthful way that I can, we must go back two years, only one year after Henry exited college for his fourth year, and managed to snag a fairly well-paying job to a nondescript advertising business in South Ashfield.

A momentary thing, Henry's real passion was to become a freelance photographer, to be able to go anywhere and take photos of anything he wanted. But that would take time, and money.

So we go back, to where the events first began and where Henry's life first began to tilt on it's axis, spilling all he knew out, and leaving the pieces of the puzzle of his life in shambled, leaving a few pieces missing.

Back two years ago, to the purchase of his very first apartment.


	2. Beginning

_*********_

**I want to mix our blood and put it in the ground  
so you can never leave  
I want to win your trust, your faith, your heart  
you'll never be deceived**

_**-Liar By: Emilie Autumn (I LOVE THIS SONG FOR WALTER!)**_

_*********_

_***Click***_

_The sound of a camera going off resounded through the empty space, echoing hollowly off of the deserted streets._

_Nobody was there at the moment to hear it though, only Henry stood in this sacred ground, lowering the camera as it went off and eyeing the building that he had photographed, entranced._

_He loved it here._

_In this place, Silent Hill._

_At first he hadn't really wanted to go, tried to think up excuses for him not to go, as he had done for many other things long before this had come along. Sure, at one time this place had been a great tourist attraction, but Henry didn't really like going out to places like that. _

_But a job was a job, so he had sucked it up and packed his bags to go._

_And now…he didn't regret the decision whatsoever._

_Despite, or perhaps because it was widely uninhabited, the place had a strange charm to it. Closed down shops lined the streets, the windows broken or boarded up, clearly desolate. The roads were old, worn, and cracked in many places, which is why he had ditched his car long ago in favor of walking down the streets of Old Silent Hill. And a strangely appealing mixture of the smell of ash and lake water reached Henry's sensitive nose_

_Above, the clouds were gray and swollen with liquid, threatening to rain down upon Henry, who didn't seem to care all that much about the weather, preferring to continue clicking his camera at almost everything that caught his vision. Everything here was so…ethereal. _

_Almost not even real._

_At the moment, Henry aimed his camera at the church of Silent, Balkan Church, if he remembered correctly from afar, watching distantly as his finger pressed the button, engraving the image forever into a film that when he got home he would carefully develop in a darkroom, careful not to let any light touch its surface until it was fully complete._

_***Click***_

_Lifting the camera away from his green eyes, Henry paused for a moment, simply leaving his finger on the button as he lowered the camera down, watching the church with a slight feeling of magnetism._

_Somehow that church had a sort of allure to it, that same ethereal quality that the rest of the town had that compelled him._

_It was almost insubstantial…eerie yet beautiful. Ghostly yet angelic. Delicate with what seemed to almost be a core of steel, unbreakable, unbendable._

_Henry lifted the camera up again._

_***Click***_

_*********_

It always began the same way, coming to the state of consciousness, that is to say.

It first began with a feeling of slight awareness, the gradual climb into the land of the living, a place that he sometimes preferred not to be.

Dreams and reality blurred all into one as that consciousness came closer to the surface, his ears slowly beginning to function and take in the sounds around him, birds chirping from nearby, and the distant sound of some annoying noise in his head that made him groan and roll over in his bed with annoyance, tasting a foulness in his mouth due to being asleep for long hours.

_There's that noise again…_ Henry thought faintly for a moment, that same annoying sound ringing in his ears and causing his brows to scrunch up in exasperation.

_Ehhh…just ignore it. _He told himself steadily, cuddling back up in the warm bed covers with a content sigh, rubbing his nose lightly in the white pillow case.

The noise persisted though, until Henry groaned again, reaching over the edge of the bed to fumble blindly for his hotel phone, picking up the white plastic object and putting it up to his ear groggily.

"Hello?" He rasped, rising up to run a hand through his hair before yawning, scratching at his arm in deliberation as he waited for whomever was on the other end of the phone to answer.

"Henry, dear? How are you? Is it nice down there…are the people nice? Have you found a place yet? You are bundling up warm aren't you? It's winter you know…you should really think about these things, I would hate you to catch a cold or someth…"

"Slow down there, mom." Henry said rather exasperated, taking a moment to look down towards the glowing blood-red numbers of the alarm clock to the right of his bed. "Fine to the first two, yes the people here are nice, no I haven't got a place quite yet, and yes, I'm bundling up."

"Oh, honey, I've missed you so much…how are you doing? Ashfield is so far away, and I haven't had a chance to talk to you in so long…" His mother, Sharron, spouted off in her usual worried tone, saying all this in one hurried breath. "You're still staying in that hotel aren't you, honey…what was it….Hotel South Ashfield? Haven't you been looking for an apartment?"

"Not yet mom…I've only been here for three days so far." Henry said patiently, yawning loudly again and rubbing at his bleary forest green eyes.

"I'll start looking this week, when I get settled in at work." He promised, cradling the phone upwards.

"Dear, please just take care." His mother said caringly, a slight whine to her soft voice. "Your father, sister, and I love you _so _much; please try not to get into any trouble, Henry."

"Trouble?" Henry asked a bit skeptically, smiling unwillingly at the worried tone his mother had. "I haven't ever been one to have or cause trouble, have I, mom?"

"Well…no, but things do change, honey." The woman said as explanation, before lightly laughing. "You always have been a bit prudish though honey, maybe you should meet a nice girl or something."

"Mom…" Henry moaned, resting his forehead onto his palms, feeling the beginnings of a headache.

_Of course she would want to start mentioning THAT particular subject…_

"I'm just saying, I haven't ever seen you with a nice young lady…perhaps that would loosen you up a bit Henry, let you have some fun! You know…I know a friend's daughter who just broke up with…"

"No thank you mom." Henry interrupted, cutting off the woman from that particular train of thought. He didn't even want to go there with his mom right now. "I'm sure I'll find someone eventually…by _myself._"

"Whatever you wish, darling. Just get one soon, so you can bring her home to meet your mommy and daddy." His mother said happily.

"And don't be afraid to speak up! You've got a lovely, sexy voice. Girlies will love it." She added in that same motherly tone, happy sounding.

Silence was the response Henry gave, not knowing what quite to say to his mother to that without sputtering and stuttering out the answer in a jumbled/embarrassed mess. His mother had always been like this though, so he was pretty much used to it, but it didn't mean he knew how to deal with it very well.

"Yeah, mom, I…I'll do that." He assured her, not sure if he meant it or not.

"And please, for god's sake honey, if you do get a girlfriend please use protecti-"

Henry hung up the phone with a sigh, wanting to completely erase the ending of that conversation from his mind. Dunk his head in a bucket of ice to numb his brain of it, whatever he had to do. He had already had "the talk" with his father long ago, and was too damned old to have these sentiments come from his mother's lips.

Almost immediately after this conversation between him and his mother, Henry stepped wearily from his bed, setting his feet onto the cold wooden floor, feeling the chill of it sink slowly into his feet. He headed towards the small adjoining bathroom, grabbing his toothbrush and staring blankly out the window as he began to scrub his teeth, letting go of the brush and leaving it gripped between his teeth when something caught his eye outside.

Right across the street was a sign, reading in big black block letters, "South Ashfield Heights." Henry had known there was an apartment across the street, but he just hadn't paid much attention to its existence. But with all this talk of finding an apartment....

Henry paused for a minute, still thinking of the cons and pros of living in this particular area.

_Might as well give it a shot…_


	3. Bloom

_Author's Note: This is a really short chapter…so I'm really sorry to those of you who have been waiting… _

_I am just in one of those times where my inspiration is at an all-time low and I have no idea why. I'm just really busy all the time…anyway, thanks for reading and sorry for the crappiness if there be any! (I wrote this all at 1:52 in the morning listening to the song O.R.T from the Silent Hill Origins soundtrack O.O_

_*******************_

He almost didn't feel bad.

Losing touch with reality, wrapped in warmth and comfort as if encased once again in his precious mother's womb he felt peace for just a moment.

It was security, and the pain didn't even really bother him at all.

He would cross any threshold of pain to be with her…

Mother…

How he loved her, even though they hadn't really met. The unbidden love of a son towards his birth mother, towards the one person that inevitably was connected to him in the first moment of life was common though.

He put all of himself into that love. And he wanted to feel that love wrapped around his heart so tightly that he couldn't breath. So tightly his soul shatter into a million tiny pieces and he could finally just be _with _her.

He would give his mother anything…already had given his mother all of his existence.

His blood.

His soul.

His life.

All of them were already lent up as offering of appeasement towards her, mere testimonials of his adoration.

The ten hearts…

Void…

Darkness…

Gloom…

Despair…

Small tokens compared to what he was so willing to give…more than willing to lend up. Anything and everything that she would ever want, he would make possible.

Only six were left.

And he knew that soon the peace would end…and the rebirth would begin. It gave him a feeling of happiness, ecstatic that he would see her…feel her.

The rebirth of god, the rebirth of his mother.

For now he floated.

Blank.

And he was all alone, in this place of his nightmares…

…this place of darkness, the womb of his mother, that he himself had created.

It was a feeling indescribable when he stepped in the building that was South Ashfield Heights.

In this building…everything felt…right….to say the very least. It was hard to really cultivate this feeling, describe it properly…

In his life he had never felt something that could even compare to this…this place drew him, like a moth to a flame.

His feet didn't want to move, as if they were weighted down by leaden plates.

"So what kind of apartment are you looking for exactly?" The superintendent whose name he failed to remember asked from nearby, his stark grey hair shining brightly against the darkness of the building's shadowed interior.

"Oh…uh…" Henry shook his head, trying to clear out the daze that had seemed to affect his mind, looking directly at the man. "Well…I was really just looking for a one-room apartment…with all the necessary's…furnished already…"

"I think I might have a room that would suit you; nobody's been in it for a while though, so you might have to clean up a bit…" The older man smiled slightly. "The name's Frank by the way…and you're…Henry Townshend, right? The guy who called earlier today?"

"Yeah…that's me." Henry said, reaching up a hand to scratch his neck anxiously.

"Well…let's get down to business then…" Frank said, turning towards the staircase, and beckoning for Henry to follow him.

Hunching his shoulders in a typical moody fashion, the young photographer obediently followed what was potentially his new superintendent up the stairs slowly. He cringed with each step that made a rather loud creak, the sudden noises the only thing heard in the complex besides the muted blare of a television from one of the rooms.

His tired eyes followed the light that played upon the windowless interior of the apartment, drifting in his thoughts.

"_Recei-"_

"Huh?" Henry asked in confusion, suddenly stopping as he looked up at Frank, wondering if the older man had said something. "I'm sorry…did you say something?"

"No…" Frank said in an almost questioning tone, turning back towards Henry before digging into his pocket and taking out a small ring of keys that jingled nervously in his hands. "But this should be the apartment I was thinking of…"

Henry turned his eyes towards the door indicated, observing it quietly before his eyes ran along the numbers printed in gold lettering on a wooden frame. Frank raffled through the numerous keys, grunting in success when he finally found the right key. He then unlocked the door that had been looked upon only moments before, letting the door swing open.

Stepping in ahead of Frank, Henry looked warily along the apartment, a strange feeling flooding through his chest, an intensified version of what he had felt only moments before.

Frank, however, upon stepping into this room frowned, looking at the back of the entranced photographers light brown head of hair, contemplating. Something, unlike that of Henry's reaction to the room, didn't exactly sit right with him. This room was suffocating, almost unwelcoming to him. And yet it seemed to be perfectly fine with younger photographer…

There had been…strange things involved with this room…302…

Perhaps this wasn't the best place…to put up a new tenant…after all…

"Maybe…maybe I should show you a different room than this one…I'm pretty sure that we have room 103 on the east side of the building open…and it's a relatively nice set up…" Frank lamely attempted, watching as Henry wandered around the apartment, a slight smile on his lips.

He felt like his stomach was sinking, knowing the man would refuse. What was the matter with him anyway…? There was nothing wrong with this room…despite the weird happenings that seemed to surround it.

"I actually think I like this room…say, what about this painting?" Henry asked turning his eyes away from the frame that lay on the far right side of the room.

"My son's…and his wife's….I put it in here because I couldn't keep it." The older man moved closer to observe the picture, before turning back to look towards Henry with a slight frown. "They disappeared a long time ago though…so you can keep it…if you're determined to take this apartment that is…"

"...I think this is the perfect place for me." Henry murmured, his bright eyes turning to follow the patterns of light that streamed through the window, observing the bare trees that lay just outside the window.

How wrong he was…


End file.
